The term ‘lady’ carried particular social connotations in the nineteenth century. It was not only an aristocratic title, but could indicate more generally a woman of good breeding – a gentlewoman.

The definition of a gentlewoman was fluid, but might include a lady of high birth, a woman who attended a great lady, or simply a woman with genteel manners and a high standard of behaviour. It seems the aspiring middle classes were more concerned with such titular details than were their aristocratic peers.

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" I am sure I loved that baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity and more disinterestedness, than can enter into the best love of a later time of life, high and ennobling as it is. "

In David Copperfield, firmness becomes synonymous with tyranny, a theme that recurs throughout Dickens' work. Other characters who wield cruel power include Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist (1837-1839), Wackford Squeers and his wife in Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), and Daniel Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841).